The results formed slowly. Not every recording was equally clear, and in some cases the forms lacked essential information. Some searches might have had a legal basis that was poorly documented; others plainly did not. Porter refused to round uncertainty in either direction, because she knew the conclusions would eventually be challenged by lawyers who had every reason to examine her methodology for weaknesses.
When the preliminary counts were finally checked, the disparity was stark. Of 340 traffic stops, 261 involved drivers identified in the reviewed records as Black or Latino, and 79 involved white drivers. Among the white drivers, three vehicle searches had been documented. Among the Black and Latino drivers, investigators counted 198 searches, many of them without recorded consent or a clearly stated basis beyond the officer's claim that the driver's behavior seemed suspicious.
The figures did not, by themselves, prove what motivated every individual stop. Porter said that repeatedly when members of the task force grew angry enough to want a simpler conclusion. She ordered comparisons with available corridor traffic information and looked at the circumstances of the stops, not merely the local residential population. Yet the individual encounters, the racial remarks, and the extraordinary difference in search rates formed a pattern no conscientious investigator could dismiss.
Forty-three of the recorded searches produced cash seizures with a combined reported value of about one hundred eighty-nine thousand dollars. The relevant files showed two attempted criminal prosecutions connected to those incidents; both had been dismissed. Several other allegations had never produced charges at all. The investigators found no recorded drug or weapon seizure tied to those forty-three cash cases, despite the interdiction unit's public claims about removing narcotics proceeds from the highway.
At a late meeting, one analyst read the total out loud. The room fell silent. Another investigator, who had worked narcotics cases for a decade, asked how the department could justify calling the unit a major crime-fighting success when its cash seizures so thoroughly outweighed its prosecutable cases. Porter looked at the wall where a map of the interstate had been pinned with colored markers. "That's what we're here to determine," she said. "Don't let the answer get ahead of the proof."
The map had once been used by the sheriff's office to celebrate where the unit captured the most money. Porter's team marked those same locations with questions instead: where the driver was from, why the car had been selected, whether footage showed consent, what paperwork followed, and whether the person ever received a meaningful hearing. The markers clustered around places with broad shoulders, isolated exits, and long stretches between businesses. They were precisely the places where a traveler would find it hardest to obtain immediate help or attract witnesses.
At New Hope Baptist Church, Pastor Colton heard that investigators were requesting older complaints. He did not rush to the courthouse with his notebook. He had made too many trips to government buildings over three years to mistake curiosity for commitment. He called the number listed on the official notice, asked who would receive his records, and requested a written assurance that the originals would be copied and returned with their contents preserved.